The afternoon of July 23 at Delaware Park was a dream come true for the Fahrney family.

Tom Fahrney was there to cheer on the 3-year-old filly Pegster – named for not one but two people close to his heart – as she ran on gamely to win the fourth race and break her maiden.

“We were all very emotional,” he recalls.

Fahrney grew up in Hagerstown, Maryland, and remembers trips to the small racetrack there with his father – his “hero” in racing, baseball, and life as a whole. Around 15 years ago, he went from fan to owner, first buying into national syndicates in small amounts, then partnering in a greater capacity on various Mid-Atlantic runners.

Fahrney’s horses are entered under the name Ram Racing Stable, in tribute to the Rams of his alma mater, Virginia Commonwealth University. On race day, you’ll see his silks of VCU black-and-gold.

“I even asked for permission from the athletic department to use [the mascot],” Fahrney says. Permission granted.

Following his retirement in 2016, he and his wife bought a farm in northern Virginia’s Rappahannock County. There, he’d raise young horses he’d purchased, either to sell them later, or keep them to race. One of these pinhooks was a Maryland-bred filly by Speightster, picked up by Fahrney as a weanling in 2022.

The next autumn, he entered the filly for sale at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Yearling Sale with a reserve of $10,000 – and the hammer fell at $9K.

“It wasn’t a good sale for me,” Fahrney remembers. (His other entry also failed to meet reserve by just a thousand dollars.) He was, however, able to later sell the other yearling privately, which helped him keep the Speightster filly to race. 

Her trainer would be Danielle Hodsdon, a former assistant to renowned conditioner Jonathan Sheppard whom Fahrney knew through his niece. He sent Pegster to Fair Hill for her racing education – the perfect environment for her, he believes.

“She was immature and had some growing up to do,” he says. “Being able to be turned out, going out on the trails – that was great for her.”

All those logistics aside, the filly still needed a name. Fahrney had named horses after other family members before, and here came an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. You see, the Fahrney family has a pair of Pegs – his mother and his wife. 

After playing around with various elements of the name, he eventually decided to just affix the -ster from sire Speightster to “Peg,” and Pegster was thus coined.

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The filly, however, got off to a slow start on the track. Fahrney was at the beach, he remembers, when Pegster made her debut, and was left dismayed as his horse showed very little out there, trailing the field to finish last of six, 27 ½ lengths behind the winner.

“Oh no,” he had thought. “This horse I named after my mother and my wife isn’t going to turn out to be a good one.”

Following two more lackluster races, Fahrney was unsure of the filly’s viability as a racehorse. Money was tight; perhaps it was time to send her to Charles Town for easier company and lower expenses.

But Hodsdon convinced Fahrney there was still something there within Pegster, and that it was time to try something different. A surface switch might do for her, or maybe more distance. How about trying both?

After being turned out for the winter, Pegster started 2025 on the grass and put in a strong third-place performance: her best race yet. And while her next start saw her finish fourth, she was less than a length outside the top three, and it seemed as if she was finally turning a corner. With that in mind, they entered her for a late July race at Delaware Park – a mile and a sixteenth turf event for maiden claimers.

The plan was for Pegster to sit just off the pace, but things didn’t quite go to plan, and she wound up in mid-pack. Jockey J.G. Torrealba got her settled, though, and she unleashed “a terrific turn of foot” rounding the far turn, took the lead, and held off all comers to finally break her maiden.

The victory was a thrilling experience for Fahrney and his family. Sadly, just one of the two Pegs was on-hand for the filly’s victory, as Fahrney’s mother passed away last October. 

That said, he thinks she was looking on that day, too. After the race, he called his father, whose 95th birthday was in three days, to deliver the happy news.

“We think Mom gave her a little extra ‘oomph’ in the stretch as a birthday present for my Dad,” he says.

The winner’s circle photo features a victorious Pegster, those black-and-gold silks, and the jubilant faces of the horse’s connections. Fahrney has his index finger pointed skyward, in tribute to the woman whose name the filly bears:

“People think I’m holding up a number one sign,” he says. “But I’m really pointing up to my Mom in heaven.”